Notes from the Future
by Omnicurls
Summary: On a trip to the future Inuyasha sees Kagome and Sesshomaru in a tea shop.
1. Chapter 1

**Notes From The Future**

"This is stupid, why are you wasting time?" Inuyasha huffed as Kagome, stubborn as ever, pushed open the door of the tea shop and walked inside. The annoyed hanyou trailed after her scratching the bandana that was starting to make his ears itch, "We don't have time for this crap; there is plenty of tea in Edo."

"I didn't ask you to come shopping for supplies with me; you insisted. This is part of my routine and honestly, one of the few things that keeps me sane." Kagome said, not even sparing a backwards glance at him.

Inuyasha watched, sulking, as she walked up to the counter and stood in line. He stood in a corner and folded his arms stubbornly across his chest, forcing himself to ignore the mouth-watering smell of baked-goods that wafted through the air. "Fucking waste of time." He muttered under his breath, he was about to add another complaint when a familiar, but painfully out of place scent, cut through the air. It was much lighter than normal, but he could recognize that scent anywhere. He scanned the room quickly, almost as though in a panic, until his eyes found the source of that bothersome scent. The man had short dark hair now and his eyes were a deep gold teetering on brown, but no matter how much he changed his appearance he could not hide that pompous, 'stick-up-his-ass' posture that announced to the world that he was superior to everyone, in every way.

"Sesshomaru." Inuyasha growled under his breath. He was about to approach his half-brother when she approached the table. Were it not for the starkly different clothes, he would have sworn that was his Kagome talking to the disguised Sesshomaru. She brushed a stray lock of ink-black hair behind her ear and smiled more brightly than he had ever seen her smile.

Inuyasha watched, frozen in disbelief, as the pair put on their coats. She was about to walk ahead, leading their way out, when he placed a hand gently on her shoulder. He picked up the blue scarf off the back of her chair. "You can be so absent-minded." It was strange for Inuyasha to hear his brother's voice sound so soft, almost teasing. He watched, still refusing to believe his eyes, as the inudaiyoukai wrapped the scarf around Kagome's neck. Sesshomaru's gaze never left hers, his eyes smouldering with the warmth of a winter fire.

"My hero." She teased. She was glowing, as though someone had hid the sun beneath her skin. Sesshomaru leaned forwards and kissed her on the forehead.

Inuyasha watched, his mind frantically searching for a gear that would enable him to understand what he was seeing. Sesshomaru offered his arm to Kagome and she took it. Inuyasha's eyes followed the couple as they walked arm in arm to door. Right before they stepped out, Sesshomaru looked over his shoulder and met his gaze. Inuyasha felt the gears in his mind grind to a halt as his body searched for the commands needed to tell it to move. He needed answers.

"Ok, we can go now." Kagome – _his_ Kagome – said from beside him. He turned to look at her, she was happily sipping her tea. She obviously had not seen what he had. Inuyasha looked at her, then at the door, and then back at her. "Are you alright?" She pressed on.

"Let's go." He said gruffly, his mind still focused on the scene that had played out in front of him. He grabbed her hand and rushed her to the door. Stepping outside he looked up and down the street but there was no sight of Sesshomaru, not even the lingering whisper of his scent.

…..

From the moment they had returned to Edo he had kept his eyes on Kagome and Sesshomaru, hoping that perhaps the past could explain the future. But there was such luck; Kagome was focused on her friends, and Sesshomaru was focused on what Inuyasha could only assume was himself. Their gazes never wandered in the vicinity of each other, their paths never crossed. They could have been on opposite sides of the world for all it mattered. Yet still, the image from the tea shop plagued him like a curse.

"Inuyasha, would you like a cup of tea? It is the new brew I just bought." Kagome asked. His eyes travelled from his brother to his friend,

"No. You know I don't like that crap." He said gruffly.

Kagome rolled her eyes before settling them on Sesshomaru, "Would you like some tea? It is pomegranate white tea."

"This Sesshomaru appreciates your kindness." Normally he would have turned down an offer from a human, but the tea smelled so foreign and so enchanting that he had to try it.

Kagome poured a cup and walked over to the tree where he was sitting. "I think you would like it; it is one of my favourites." She said, lowering the cup to him.

Inuyasha watched the scene in front of him, trying desperately to equate it to the tea shop, but it was far too different. She was smiling, but it was the same polite smile she gave everyone, and Sesshomaru was looking at her but his golden eyes were as steeled and emotionless as ever. There was something very important missing from this interaction, something essential in the tea shop that just did not exist here, something so fundamental that its absence allowed the hanyou enough peace of mind to convince himself that he must have been hallucinating. It would only be much later that he would realise what was missing was just time.

Sesshomaru nodded his thanks. As he took the cup from her his claws grazed her hand. At the contact her breath hitched in her throat, something sparked behind his eyes, and time creaked into motion, ready to hurtle itself at miko and inudaiyoukai with the force of the gods.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** Hope you enjoyed this little one shot. I have a whole story idea attached to it, but I am focusing on my other story for __now. If people like it, I might expand it_


	2. Chapter 2

**I Heard it Said...**

"Inuyasha."

She was almost pleading for a response. He could hear her desperation in the way her voice stretched high until it strained at the edges and threatened to collapse under the weight of her sadness. "Inuyasha, just answer me."

His ears twitched at the sound of his name, moving involuntarily in the direction of her voice, but his stubborn mind kept him rooted to his spot with his back to her. She sighed and he heard the slow, sullen falls of her retreating feet. She was sad? Well good, that made two of them.

Inuyasha crossed his arms over his chest, his claws digging painfully into his upper arm as his mind replayed that painful moment over and over again. The attack had been swift and painfully ill-timed; the whole group was preparing to turn in for the night when a band of ogres had descended upon them. It was a desperate scramble to organise. He took his eyes off her for one second, if that, and only because like the most annoying being every to grace the earth, Sesshomaru who should have been 'on his way to deal with his own matters' came slicing through the onslaught with an arrogance so thick you could drown in it.

In the one second he had look away, an ogre managed to slip past him and grab Kagome. The fear in her eyes spoke to something deep inside of him, and demanded he make her feel safe again. But what stuck with him was not that fear, but her voice. The exact pattern and tone was seared into his mind and refused to let go. He could still feel the panic and sheer instinct behind her words when she cried out, just like he could feel the moment his heart beat hollow when the name she screamed was not his own.

Inuyasha dug his nails deeper into his arm and cursed his fire rat haori because it numbed the physical pain he so needed to distract him from his emotions. "Sesshomaru!" her voice rang in his head, and he swatted at its imaginary physical manifestation. He could not understand why she would turn to his brother for help when he was standing right there, just like he always had been.

His ears picked up the low hum of soul reapers, inaudible to human ears but almost irresistible to his. He stood up, not caring that the sun had barely begun to dip behind the horizon. There was a time when he would have at least waited for nightfall, waited for her to go to sleep so she would not know he was leaving. But that scream for 'sesshomaru' in all its hope and desperation, and killed any courtesy he might have shown her. He could feel Kagome's eyes following him, but he refused to look back; his anger and betrayal were too fresh for him to see reason. She cried for Sesshomaru? Well, he cried for Kikyo.

…

It had been two weeks and he still refused to speak to her properly. Aside generic demands and some infantile speaking through others, he had let his anger whittle down their friendship. It would have been so much easier if Sesshomaru did not show up so often to remind him, with his mere presence, that Kagome had entrusted her safety to someone else.

Inuyasha folded his arms stubbornly across his chest and kicked an imaginary stone as he waited for her outside the shop. He had only crossed the well to bring her back, and had made it clear that this was no show of affection.

…..

 _"We should not be here." Sesshomaru said, linking his fingers with her much more slender ones, "Stop being so careless."_

 _"But you got to see last time, I did not even know! Please? Just till I come out of the store." Kagome pleaded, her eyes fixed on the shop in which her much younger self had entered. "Inuyasha is brooding outside, which means he's not speaking to me, which means…"_

 _"Yes, I know what it means, so let's not interfere." Sesshomaru said as he pulled her away and she reluctantly followed, "Let's go Kagome."_

…

Inuyasha's ear twitched. He shot to attention and looked around carefully. He could swear he had heard her name on the wind, carried by that bastard's voice. He sniffed the air carefully, only to find no scents that should not be. But he had heard it, he had heard her name spoken so softly and so gently. Memories of the tea shop from months ago came flooding back and a nagging suspicion he had once called irrational reared its filthy head. An impossible notion, Sesshomaru and Kagome, yet still it plagued him like a curse. He gritted his teeth in annoyance and, like a soldier heading into battle, ran down the street in search of the source. He found nothing.

When he finally gave up his search and marched back to the shop, Kagome was standing outside looking lost and worried. "I thought you left!" she brightened when she saw him walking towards her, the light that spread across her features left him feeling guilty for having ignored her so long. Yes, he still felt the sting of betrayal, but her name in that bastard's voice, carried like a bitter taunt on the wind, was more than enough to make him fear pushing her away lest she turn elsewhere. And her relief, so sincere it was almost palpable, was enough to make him regret his previous childishness.

"I thought I heard something. C'mon." He said, taking her shopping bags from here in a rare display of consideration.

"Are you talking to me now?" She asked, her hopeful eyes fixed on his.

"Yeah, sure." He huffed,

"Will you tell me why you were mad at me?" She still did not look away and he began to feel a strange warmth stirring in the pit of his stomach. It was amazing how hard she had tried to mend things between them, even without knowing where she had erred.

"No, it's nothing."

"Inuyasha!"

"I 'ain't saying anything. Just let it go."

"Fine."

"Fine."

"Fine."

He had not realised how much the tension between them had snuck under his skin, and buried itself between his shoulder blades and within the very fibres of his muscles. But their reconciliation, felt like his whole body was unwinding, spreading out and relaxing in a way it had not done in weeks.

…

His worry was in the future. Sesshomaru kissing Kagome on the forehead, her name in his voice carried softly, almost gently, were all concerns locked in her world of stone roads and towering glass buildings. The madness of that pairing was sealed far away in time, along with the very madness and cacophony that defined her era. Edo was his haven where things flowed as they should; the world was quiet, it smelled clean and fresh, and Sesshomaru was just his asshole of a half-brother whose only gift was an arrogance that would make the gods stare in wonder.

He watched as the sun touched the horizon, and as if on cue, the low hum of soul stealers thrummed in the distance, calling him. He settled against the tree and kept his eyes surreptitiously on Kagome. He would have left, but her name in Sesshomaru's voice, carried by the wind, had somehow crossed over time with him and still refused to leave him alone. And when one thought of the devil, the devil appeared in the form of a pristine white figure breaking through the line of trees.

"Aw fucking hell." Inuyasha rolled his eyes, "like today wasn't bad enough."

"Sesshomaru-sama." Kagome bowed politely,

"You look well." Sesshomaru replied, ignoring Inuyasha's rudeness.

"Ah, you were right; I just needed to go home. I needed a break." Kagome smiled. Inuyasha was at attention. He looked around the camp, hoping someone would mention the strangeness of this exchange, but everyone was engrossed in their own activities as though nothing out of the ordinary was happening. When had Kagome and Sesshomaru become so familiar? He gritted his teeth. He wanted to say something, but he had no words to articulate his confusion.

He watched as Kagome dug into her bag and pulled out a small package, and finally his words found him. "Why the hell did you get that asshole something? Since when are you friends?" Something deep inside him whispered that it must have happened in his absence, in the large stretches of time he left her to find Kikyo, she must have made his fears come true by finding someone to replace him.

"Inuyasha," Kagome said slowly, her confusion dragged on the ends of her words and made them sound as though she did not believe the very words she was speaking, "Sesshomaru has helped us a lot there past few weeks. I'm just saying thank you."

"It's just some pens and a notepad but I remember how you said mine were really efficient and I didn't know what to get you so I just-"

"Your kindness is appreciated." He said, taking the package from her.

"I also got Rin a new colouring book, and some crayons." She smiled brightly, but she sounded nervous. "She mentioned that she'd lost a few of her favourite colours so I just picked up new ones for her, I hope she likes them. If not just let me know and next time I'll get different one." Inuyasha could hear it in how her voice strained and faltered, and in the way her words ran on as though searching for some unknown conclusion. He narrowed his eyes, unaware of the slow circling of time around them, its gentle caressing of her hair, a nudge here and a prod there, as it circled and circled, setting inevitable things into motion.

"Kagome, Thank you." Sesshomaru's words were more a way to help her stop rambling. The daiyoukai cast a sidelong glance at his hanyou half-brother, "it speaks to your character that Inuyasha's lack of manners have not tainted yours."

On a different day Inuyasha would have risen to the bait and snapped back at his elder brother, but he had barely heard past the word 'Kagome' and how eerily its intonation matched that of the one that had followed him through the well. It was as though the future and the past were weaving into each other. The gentleness in Sesshomaru's voice, the undertones of fondness, all scratched at the inside of his mind and screamed at him to make it stop. To make them stop. With no idea how else to stop this whatever he was witnessing, Inuyasha grabbed Kagome's hand and yanked her behind him. Gold eyes stared down gold, "Stay the fuck away from her." Inuyasha snarled,

"Inuyasha what are you doing?"

"Protecting you." He snapped, his eyes fixed on his brother who looked mildly irritated at best.

"From what? Sesshomaru has been here every evening for the past two and a half weeks, if he was going to hurt anyone he would have done so by now. You'd know this if you did not go off all the time to… if you didn't disappear so often." Her words caught on the mention of his running off to Kikyo, and he felt a pang of guilt so sharp it might have well have been an actual sword. Kagome wrested her hand from his grip, "Can you just calm down?"

She was speaking but he was not hearing her; all he was hearing was the weight of a realisation. Finally, he saw the future steaming towards them and he understood how, in his anger, he had stepped aside to make way for it.

...

 _A/N: So here is another chapter. Finally, this story is taking its sweet time in allowed me to phrase it. I decided to make it from Inuyasha's perspective, so we will only see the mile stones in Kagome and Sesshomaru's relationship that he notices and how he deals with them. Thanks for all the positive feedback! It really helped._


	3. Chapter 3

**Biography of Them**

He'd heard them in the night. It was one of those quiet, windless nights whose chill came from the onward march of winter. She was sitting by the fire. A gloved hand writing, pausing, tapping her pen to her chin softly, and then writing again. Her eyes were fixed with such rapt attention on the book balanced on her lap, that she did not notice him staring at her, transfixed by the soft orange glow against her skin.

"Kagome." God, he _hated_ how Sesshomaru said her name. He would have given nearly anything for that bastard to go back to calling her 'woman' or 'miko'. Calling her by her first name was not the problem per say; the problem was _how_ he said it. He said it with such sickening care, as though her were taking the time to roll out each syllable perfectly and gently. As though he were speaking some kind of god-damn incantation that require flawless articulation.

Her eyes moved upwards slowly and settled on the inudaiyoukai seated a tree away from her. She smiled ever so slightly but her eyes lit up as though she were grinning madly. It was a smile Inuyasha understood like his understood his own being; it was the smile that accompanied the anticipation of something good, the smile that waited for the magic that only one person could produce. It was the smile she used to have when she'd arrive back in the feudal era and he'd lean over the lip of the well to yell some callous statement down at her in hopes of hiding his affection, right before he jumped in to sweep her out of its depths. It was her 'Inuyasha is coming for me' smile.

"What are the stars, truthfully?" Sesshomaru asked, his voice was back to its usual impassive monotone. He was not even looking at her; he was looking at the sky. He was missing the way the glow from the fire lit her skin from within, the way her eyes shone bluer against the red-orange light. But most infuriatingly, he was missing the way she looked at him as though everything worthwhile in the entire universe was somehow folded into his being. "Or do we not know in your time?"

"Know?" She laughed, a clear beautiful sound to Inuyasha's ears. He looked at his brother who seemed to remain unmoved by the sound. His eyes were still fixed on the night sky that would fade with sun rise, and appear with sun set like it had every single day before, and would every single day after. "Oh, we know," Kagome said. She placed her pen between the leaves of her book and closed it, "we've been to space, walked on the moon, and even put a robot on mars."

"A robot?"

"A machine, that we can control from earth, and it can kind of think, and send back information we put one on a comet too."

"How did we achieve that?"

Kagome looked at him evenly, and then her eyes practically glowed as her lips spread into a full grin and she laughed again. "You want me to explain rocket science?"

It was some kind of joke that Inuyasha did not understand. But from the looks of it, Sesshomaru did not either. The inudaiyoukai simply blinked slowly, and as he did he eased his eyes from the sky to her eyes. Locking his gaze with her, he replied, "for now I merely desire that you explain the stars."

Inuyasha felt as though he was about to retch. He tore his focus from his brother and to Kagome and saw the very moment in which she seemed to forget how to function, and even a task as menial as exhaling became stalled. She blinked. "I- I think I have my physics books somewhere in by bag." She turned to sharply to face her overstuffed canvas bag that her hair whipped around and struck her in the face. Digging into her bag, she pulled out a blue and purple book and began to leaf through the pages as she stood up and walked towards the seated Lord who was now watching her with rapt attention.

Sesshomaru should not even have been there; he did not belong with them, nor was he travelling with them. He had just shown up, and sat down as though his presence would not be questioned. And when Inuyasha had tried to challenge his presence, Kagome had groaned in the back of her throat and asked for silence because she was 'trying to study'. He frowned, anger creased his forehead and knitted his brows into a tight silver knot. He couldn't disturb her without the threat of an argument, but that asshole could with his dumb questions and she'd just smile like an equally dumb little girl and indulge his bullshit.

She stood in front of him and lowered the book in an attempt to show him the pages she held open. He made the most minimal effort to crane his neck and look. She lowered herself to her knees in front of him so he could see better, and he leaned forward. Inuyasha heard a small, sharp intake of breath that was the closest thing to a gasp one would get from the Lord of the West. "It's beautiful, isn't it?" Kagome smiled, pleased to his awed him.

"What is that?"

"The sky."

"I know that." He said as he reached one clawed hand towards the book and carefully traced the explosion of colours across its surface, "but what, why, _is_ it?"

She bit her bottom lip slightly, but only on the right side. It was that habit of hers that surfaced right before she acted on an impulse she considered brave and extremely risky. He believed in his heart of hearts that before she shot that arrow at him that shattered the jewel, she had bitten her bottom lip slightly. But only on the right side. Placing her hand on the ground for balance, she moved and positioned herself right next to Sesshomaru so her arm grazed his, she tucked one leg underneath herself and stretched out the other, and placed the book halfway on her thigh, halfway on his. Even from this distance Inuyasha could hear the thundering of her heart. "This book has some basic explanations, nothing too detailed. Next time I go home I could get you a more detailed explanation."

"That would be greatly appreciated, Kagome." He said, his eyes still transfixed on the impossible images of the cosmos, "this is unbelievable."

"It is. It's amazing how you see can see something from afar and think it's perfection itself, and when you get up close somehow it manages to be even more beautiful than you could ever imagine. So beautiful that you might even forget to breath." Kagome said, and Inuyasha felt those words on a deeply personal level; it was as though she had taken how he felt about her soul and put it into perfect words. She was bright as any sun, but she wasn't shining for him. At least not anymore.


End file.
